Vermont higher education faces cuts under sequestration

Impact on student aid limited

Feb. 27, 2013

Written by

Free Press Staff Writer

The imminent federal budget cuts known as sequestration are likely to have a scattershot impact on higher education in Vermont, with generally small effects on student aid but a big hit for research funding.

Federal research support at the University of Vermont is estimated to drop by $8.1 million, according to a projection by the Association of American Universities, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities and the Science Coalition.

That would amount to roughly 8 percent of UVM’s sponsored research grants. In per capita terms, that’s a bigger reduction in academic research than would be felt in California, where the projected drop is $351 million. Still, that estimate is tentative, based on a flat percentage cut for all federal agencies; the actual number could be higher or lower depending on agencies’ discretionary decisions, said Domenico Grasso, UVM’s vice president for research. Both of the federal government’s major funding agencies, the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, have annnounced that they expect to make fewer competitive awards under sequestration.

Sequestration is Washington’s term for spending reductions by fixed percentages in most federal programs that will take effect Friday, barring last minute-congressional action. The cuts would follow a failure by Congress and the administration to resolve a 2011 political dispute over raising the federal debt ceiling.

Pell grants, the primary form of federal student aid for lower-income students, would be exempt from reductions. Two federal allocations that would be affected nationwide — but less so in Vermont — are for Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants, for low-income students and work-study programs. Most Vermont colleges (including he University of Vermont and most of the Vermont State Colleges) would see no reduction in either of those programs, according to a spreadsheet put out by the National Association of Student Aid Administrators.

Exceptions are the Community College of Vermont, which would lose an estimated $17,575 in opportunity-grant funds, which translates to awards for 22 students, and $11,756 in work-study money (five students); Middlebury College ($13,018 less for work-study); New Englasnd Culinary Institute ($2,411 less for opportunity grants, $2,345 less for work-study); and Vermont Law School ($21,166 less for work-study).

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Federally funded outreach and student support services programs, known as TRIO, would be cut by $134,000 across Vermont State Colleges, said Dan Smith, VSC spokesman. The programs provide academic and other support to lower-income and first-generation college students. About 60 percent of the degree-seeking students at Vermont State Colleges are the first in their families to attend college.

The TRIO funding reduction, Smith wrote in email, “may force the colleges to cut staffing for services which support more than 1,310 students across the system.”

UVM’s TRIO programs, Student Support Services and Upward Bound, could be cut by $29,217, according to Ellen McShane, director of academic support programs.

Both programs “will still be able to carry out the requirements of our grants even with these budget cuts,” she wrote in an email. “(H)owever, each reduction means that it becomes more and more difficult to serve the student populations serviced by TRIO: first-generation students, limited-income students, and students with disabilities.”

Sequestration will not affect federal student loan rates, but origination fees may increase slightly. The Vermont Student Assistance Corp. anticipates a cut of about $300,000 in federal grants that fund counseling programs for Vermont students in middle schools and high schools.

“We have planned for this unfortunate contingency and are committed to doing everything in our power to make certain that none of the students or schools we serve lose access to services,” wrote Scott Giles, VSAC’s vice president for policy research and planning, in an email. “We have delayed hiring,and have the ability to postpone investments in new access initiatives in order to preserve current services.”

Giles added: “Sequestration represents a complete mismatch between the national policy consensus that all Americans need education or training after high school and our national fiscal policy. We at VSAC believe that the next generation of students should have the same education opportunities that today's leaders were provided. Sequestration puts this goal at risk.”